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Golden Meadow sewerage fees double

Published: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 9:29 p.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 at 12:52 p.m.

Golden Meadow residents’ sewerage bills have more than doubled after an audit showed the town was losing money providing the service.

An audit report by the accounting firm Bourgeois Bennett was posted Monday to the Legislative Auditor’s Office’s website.The report shows the town has operating losses of about $85,000 in its sewerage fund over the past year.

The shortfall is caused from an increase in maintenance system after several breakdowns and an increased number of residents not paying their sewerage bills, Golden Meadow Mayor Joey Bouziga said.

“We weren’t charging enough to cover the amount we were spending on our sewers,” Bouziga said.

The losses have been gradually building up since 1984 but have been worsened by the breakdowns, he said.

The audit recommends raising the sewerage rate and stepping up actions to collect unpaid bills.

Bouziga said he agreed with the original audit. So he and fellow Town Council members increased the sewerage fee in April from $7.50 per month to $16 per month.

“That should help us sustain the expansion of our sewers,” Bouziga said.

And the sewerage fund should now be self-sustaining instead of forcing the town to cover its losses with money from other accounts, he added.

He said the town is also making arrangements get tougher at collecting unpaid bills.

“We didn’t have any leverage at all,” Bouziga said. “There was no way to force them unless we brought them to court. But by the time we did that we were would be losing more money than what we would get.”

The town’s administration asked Lafourche Waterworks District No. 1 to begin billing and collecting sewerage on monthly water bills.

Once that happens, the town can cut off a resident’s water service if he doesn’t pay his sewerage bill.

“If you don’t pay your Entergy bill, they come and turn your meter off,” Bouziga said. “With sewerage, we had no way to put a stop to it.”

The change will cost each sewerage customer $102 a year.

Some residents said they don’t like having to pay for other people’s wrongdoing.

“That’s awful to always make the good people pay for the bad. Just cut their water off, and find a better solution,” Chelsie Orgeron said.

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